A Green Goofball and His Creepy Goth Girl—COMPLETE!
by Jay-Washington
Summary: [Image credits to picolo on Tumblr, DA, and IG] After a botched date, Beast Boy and Raven must try to decide whether or not they want to put up a fight for their relationship or throw in the towel. Based off of The Greatest Showman's "Rewrite the Stars!" ONESHOT!


Raven sat on the edge of Titans Tower, staring out at the night sky that enveloped Jump City. There were many times she'd come up to this spot—her favorite place to be besides her room—and had felt at home as she took in the dark skyline, but this was not one of those times.

Sorrow clenched her throat as the memories of her day played out in her mind. Raven folded her legs underneath her and pinched the tips of her fingers together. If she could just maintain her focus in meditation, she could get rid of all of these feelings—anger, despair, regret.

 _Love_.

She gasped at the sudden realization that the last one was actually her sensing an emotional projection from Beast Boy. Moments later, a green hawk swooped down onto the roof. As he morphed back, Beast Boy said, "I thought I might find you up here."

"Looks like I need a new hiding spot." She doubted she'd be able to find one, though, seeing as he knew her so well now.

In the last few months, she'd never expected things to move as fast as they had between them. But though they'd been seeing each other for a while—and had known each other for even longer—Raven wasn't sure she was ready to describe them as _dating_ , especially not after what'd happened today.

He stood no more than five paces away from her, his body illuminated by the lights of Jump City's nightlife. Beast Boy had always been cute, but as she took him in, Raven wondered when he had gotten so handsome. For once he wasn't smiling at her and his dark green eyes, usually lit up with childlike wonder, seemed almost dull. She wondered if he was just as haunted by the memories of it as she was.

She looked away from his eyes, then, and took a deep breath as another swell of guilt washed over her. "You're stalling, Beast Boy. Say what you came here to say."

He slid her a guarded look as he considered her words. After a long beat of silence passed between them, he said, "What happened at the coffee shop wasn't your fault, Raven. That girl was way out of line."

Her response was immediate: "No, she wasn't. I should've had better control of my powers. It's not like my powers are new. I know what can happen if I get upset." And yet, it was like all of the guards she'd learned to put up against her swarm of powerful emotions had all been easily penetrated by one word: _creepy_.

She hadn't had a dark outburst of her powers like that since the last time the Titans had faced Dr. Light, and that'd been several years ago. Neither Dr. Light nor the girl in the coffee shop—or the coffee shop itself, for that matter—had been prepared for such a fearsome display of her magic. It was a wonder her dark powers hadn't collapsed the entire building.

Beast Boy let out a breath of laughter. "I really don't think it was all that bad, Rae. I've seen firsthand what you can _really_ do when you're mad. Trust me—she was lucky to get off with no more than an equivalent of a demonic talking-to."

Raven narrowed her eyes at him and he immediately stopped laughing. "It isn't funny, Beast Boy."

"Come on, Raven. You've gotta admit it's a _little_ funny. I mean, if this were a movie, you totally got your comeuppance on the Mean Girl!"

"If this were a movie," Raven said, "I'd be the monster." Noticing the disapproving look he was giving her, she added, "Okay, fine. At best, I'd be no more than the creepy, goth girl in the corner."

He came and sat beside her. "Well, I happen to like the creepy, goth girl, so…"

"You don't get it, Beast Boy! I'm supposed to be a hero. How can I expect people to trust me to save them when they're afraid of me? How can I try to be good for you when everything about me is evil?"

"Raven," he said, placing his hands on either side of her face. "You're hurt and sad, but you know that isn't true."

"Maybe—" She wasn't sure what her _maybe_ was. There was nothing she could do to make herself—to make _them_ stand out any less than they already did. Raven stood there in front of him, frowning and biting her bottom lip as she tried to think of anything she could do. Finally, she came up with an idea: "If I were more like Terra…"

Beast Boy's silence made Raven's body prickle with shame. For once she found herself yearning for one of his chattier moments—a joke, a laugh, anything. But he didn't joke. Instead, he whispered, "Is that really what you think?"

No, but talking to him about that was _not_ what she'd come here to do. Raven got up and tried to push past him, but Beast Boy reached out and caught her hand. "Raven, I don't compare you to her and you shouldn't either."

Her eyes swam with tears that she struggled not to release. "I don't think I can do this anymore."

"What, be a hero? All because of Mean Girl?" He stood up, but kept her hand in his, holding her fast in place. "Because if that's the case, then lemme tell you—"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I mean, I don't think we should try to be together anymore."

He scoffed out of his nose, the same way he did when she suggested he do something _other_ than play video games all day. "I'd hardly say we're _trying_ to be together—we just are."

Raven looked down at her feet. "You say it like it's all so simple."

"Because it _is_ , Rae!"

"No, it's not," she insisted. "Nothing ever is. The world isn't what you think it is, Beast Boy. What are people going to think if we…"

"Well, that's just it, Raven," he said softly as he knelt beside her. "You don't have to care what they think."

A dark shadow passed over her pale face. "That's easy for you to say, Beast Boy. No one will ever look at you the way that people look at me."

Exasperated, Beast Boy threw his hands into the air. "You think I don't know what kind of looks people give us? Raven, I'm _green_! People are _always_ giving me looks. I've just learned not to care anymore."

Raven refused to meet his eyes.

Beast Boy let out a long sigh and pushed his spiky hair back. "Well, if this world won't accept a green goofball and his creepy, goth girl, then we'll make our own," he said. "It'll be just like how we are in the Tower—just you and me. I can still have my video games and you can still drink your nasty chameleon tea."

As usual, he'd found a way to make her laugh, if even a little bit. She'd long since given up the ruse of telling him she didn't find him funny—this joke was one of her favorites. "Chamomile," she corrected softly, a small smile on her lips.

"Great, so you agree!"

Her smile and eyes fell back down. "You think I don't want that world to be real? That I don't want to run to you with open arms and pretend that all the looks and the comments are all just figments of my dark imagination?"

He gave her a pained smile—it wasn't wide enough to show any of his fanged teeth. "Honestly, I'm starting to think you don't. You're fighting so hard against everything we could be."

"It's not me who's fighting against it." Tentatively, she reached up and touched his cheek. His head leaned into her hand as she stepped close enough to feel the heat of his breath. "I want this, too, but there's nothing we can do, Beast Boy."

Beast Boy pinched the bridge of his nose. " _Please_ don't go back to the whole 'our hands are tied' spiel."

Her eyebrows burrowed together in indignation. "They are! Face it, Beast Boy—you and I were never supposed to be together! Fate has already determined that I can't have you. What about that _don't_ you seem to understand?"

Raven remembered a time when she would get angry and Beast Boy would cower away from her. But that'd been five years ago—when they were still just as foolish, but younger. Now, Beast Boy met her muted fury with his shoulders thrown back and an upright spine.

"Raven, you should know better than anyone else that what we think is already in the cards for us can be proven wrong. Nothing about us that's been written in the stars, or set in stone, or whatever has to be that way. We can change the world to be ours."

Her throat tightened. She wanted so much to believe him, to dream that the love that radiated between them could be more than just a "No one can do that, Beast Boy."

"Raven," he said again, and this time she looked up at him. "I love _you_. You know that. It's not some secret I'm trying to hide from the world, Rae. They already know I'm yours."

Her eyes, dark as the midnight sky, shimmered with questions. "How can you say that when everything around us says exactly the opposite? When it all feels so impossible?"

Beast Boy leaned forward, placing his forehead against hers. "It's not impossible, Raven. And you know how I know that?" He grabbed her hand and held it over his heart. "Because you're here, where no one can keep us apart."

His words buoyed her spirits, and when his lips brushed against hers, she felt joy blossom within her. Longing traveled through her body in stimulated whispers. Falling for Beast Boy had felt a lot like this. _Like flying_ , she realized, _with all its ups and downs._

Her desire flickered to life in the form of a dream: To fly or to fall, with only the two of them there to support the other like a harness. She wanted to forget all of her doubts, all of the things in this world that told her they were hopeless. But more than anything, Raven wanted to be able to experience the little world Beast Boy had talked about, where they could just be each other.

Beast Boy placed another kiss on her forehead and then a final one on the tips of her fingers. "All you have to do is say that it's possible, Rae," he whispered.

She could still feel his heartbeat under her other hand. "So how do we do it," she said, finally. "How do we rewrite the stars?"

Elation suffused his being, and his eyes lit up with the light of fresh energy, like a caffeine buzz. With a giant, fanged grin, Beast Boy leaned his forehead back on Raven's and simply said, "Together."

 **A/N: Obviously, I'm in love with "Rewrite the Stars" from The Greatest Showman. If you get the chance, check it out! I asked my patrons on what four fandoms they wanted me to write these oneshots for, and this was the first one they wanted! If you want to learn more about the other three and when you can expect them, head to my profile and follow the link to DeviantArt! Also, don't forget to review!**


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